HKB
[Sidenote: Amnesty acts]
Politically it was a turbulent year for France. On the question of the budget the Ministry was defeated in January and had to resign. The new Ministry called in went to pieces on February 22, when Guizot and De Broglie retired from the Cabinet. Thiers was placed at the helm. On June 26, another attempt to assassinate the King was made by Louis Alibaud, a former soldier of the south who had taken part in the revolution of July. The military expedition to Algeria under Marshal Clauzel and the Duke of Orleans first met with distinguished success. The French army occupied Mascera. But later the unfortunate issue of an expedition against the town of Constantine caused the retirement of Marshal Clauzel as Governor-General of Algeria. Commander Changarnier at the head of a French battalion was beaten back step by step by an overwhelming body of Achmet Bey's cavalry of the desert. The question of French intervention in Spain resulted in the downfall of the Ministry of Thiers. King Louis Philippe, ever since Lord Palmerston's chilling reply to his overtures for joint intervention, was opposed to such a project. "Let us aid the Spaniards from a distance," said he, "but never let us enter the same boat with them. Once there we should have to take the helm, and God knows where that would bring us." He demanded the retirement of the French corps of observation in the Pyrenees. Thiers was utterly opposed to this: "Nothing can bring the King to intervention," said he, "and nothing can make me renounce it." On September 6, the Cabinet resigned, having been in power but six months. Count Mole was charged with forming a new Ministry. A new cause of disquietude was given late in October by Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte at Strasburg. On the last day of that month, Louis Napoleon, with no other support than that of Persigny and Colonel Vauterey, paraded the streets of that town and presented himself at the barracks of the 4th regiment of artillery. He was received with the cry "Vive l'Empereur." An attempt to win over the soldiers of the other barracks failed. The young prince was arrested. Ex-Queen Hortense interceded in his behalf. The attempt to regain the Napoleonic crown had been so manifest a fiasco that Louis Philippe thought he could afford to be generous. Louis Napoleon was permitted to take himself off to the United States of America with an annuity of fifteen thousand francs from the royal purse. His adherents were taken before the court at Colmar and were all acquitted by the jury. A simultaneous military mutiny at Vendome was treated with like leniency. After the death of ex-King Charles X., Prince Polignac and other of his Ministers who had come to grief after the revolution of 1830 were sent out of the country. A general amnesty was announced.
[Sidenote: American elections]
[Sidenote: The "Gag Law"]
[Sidenote: Smithson's bequest]
[Sidenote: Jackson's specie circular]